South Dakota education officials have struggled to revise social studies standards that include guidelines for teaching Native American history and culture, but a new poll suggests state residents are very firm in their support for inclusion of Native studies in public schools.
The poll of 500 registered South Dakota voters in October showed that 88% of respondents were very or somewhat supportive of teaching Native history and culture in South Dakota schools. The poll showed that 6.4% of respondents said teaching Native studies was not too important, 2.6% said not at all important and 3.2% were unsure.
The poll results come at a time when the public school system in South Dakota is grappling with how to update its social studies standards and improve the teaching of civics and history. The discussion over what history to teach in public schools in South Dakota has raised concerns of some Native American groups that Native history will be reduced, eliminated or whitewashed to ignore the historic and modern traumas suffered by many Native Americans, the state’s largest minority group.
The poll results also arrived as the state Department of Education has reported that fewer than half of educators in South Dakota schools are using the Oceti Sakowin Essential Understandings and Standards, a set of state-approved concepts that provides a framework for teaching Native history and culture. The 35-page set of lesson plans and instructional guidelines includes teaching aids in history, culture, language, treaties, identity and way of life of Lakota, Dakota and Nakota Sioux Indians, who make up most of the Native tribes in the Dakotas.
A DOE survey of more than 700 educators in 125 districts found that only 45% of educators reported using the Oceti understandings in their schools, and that 9% of educators said their schools did not celebrate Native history or culture in any way.
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